1. Technical Field
The presently disclosed embodiments are directed to composite substrate feeding mechanisms having stackable feeder trays for holding a variety of substrate media.
2. Brief Discussion of Related Art
Conventional substrate feeders for use with printing systems generally include drawers for holding a predetermined size and quantity of paper. For example these drawers typically can hold between 550 and 3000 sheets of paper. These inflexible drawers limit the functionality of some printing systems. For example, because of the size of these drawers, only a limited number of drawers can be included in a substrate feeder. For long job runs such drawers provide an acceptable level of performance, since a user requires a larger number of sheets of paper to be available for each job run. However, for users who wish to perform shorter job runs, in some cases with more variability in job size, paper size, and paper type, these conventional substrate feeders can be burdensome and impractical.
Users typical implement “work arounds” so that these conventional substrate feeders function in a desired manner. For example, users may insert false loading material, such as cardboard, into a drawer of a substrate feeder to create a feeding jam at the end of a job run to stop the sheet feeding process so that the next job can be identified, prepared, and started. This mode of operation is not only inconvenient for the user, but also can lead to wear and tear of the substrate feeder and/or the printing system.